Advancements in communication technologies have permitted the development and installation of many various types of communication systems. Wireless communication systems exemplify of communication systems that have benefited from the advancements in communication technologies.
In a wireless communication system, a radio link forms at least a portion of a communication path upon which communication signals are transmitted. A wireless communication system can be implemented as a mobile communication system as the radio link is substituted for a conventional wireline, otherwise required to complete the communication path upon which the communication signals are transmitted. And, when implemented as a mobile communication system, increased mobility of communication is, as a result, provided.
Network infrastructures of various types of wireless communication systems have, for instance, been installed throughout significant geographical regions. The network infrastructures of cellular communication systems, have been installed, available for usage by large numbers of subscribers to communicate therethrough. Access to communicate by way of a cellular communication system is typically provided pursuant to purchase of a service subscription. In a cellular communication system, telephonic communication of both voice and data is typically provided pursuant to the service subscription.
In a conventional, cellular communication system, a subscriber thereto typically utilizes a mobile terminal that is formed of a radio transceiver. A radio transceiver is capable both of transmitting and of receiving radio signals communicated upon radio links formed between the mobile terminal and the network infrastructure of the communication system. The term “user” shall be used herein, generally to identify an individual utilizing the mobile terminal to communicate therethrough.
Increasingly, cellular communication systems are constructed to make use of digital communication techniques in which data that is to be communicated during operation of the communication system is communicated in digitized form. Circuitry is utilized to process the data, prior to its transmission as well as, also, subsequent to its reception.
A mobile terminal is typically packaged in a housing sized to permit the mobile terminal to be readily carried by the user. Various constructions of mobile terminals are sized to permit the user thereof to carry the mobile terminal in a shirt pocket, or the like, conveniently to have the mobile terminal available at any time to place or to receive a call therethrough.
Because the mobile terminal utilizes processing circuitry, additional functions, in addition to the functions required to effectuate conventional communication operations, may be carried out by the mobile terminal. That is to say, the functionality of other types of devices may be incorporated into the mobile terminal. Information processing and retrieval functions are often incorporated into a mobile terminal. Furthermore, mobile terminals are increasingly constructed to provide for multi-media communication services. For example, digital-video devices, such as digital cameras, may be incorporated within a mobile terminal by which to collect digital image data that subsequently is communicated by the transceiver circuitry of the mobile terminal.
The mobile terminal might well be adapted, subsequent to its initial manufacture or initial association with a cellular communication system to provide for other functions or otherwise to have its operational parameters changed. The alteration, adaptation, update of, or other change to the functionality of the mobile terminal may be made independent of a network manager of the communication network in which the mobile terminal is operable. Network management of the mobile terminal, forming a mobile node in such a network, might not be able to be effectuated as a result of such alterations or changes.
The functionality of many mobile terminals, as well as other devices, are defined in terms of a device management (hereinafter “DevMan”) tree (also known as a logic tree). The DevMan tree is formed using one or more Device Description Framework (DDF) descriptions of objects. Each DDF description is a logical grouping of related objects, all described in the same document. A DevMan tree is constructed, or initiated, using one or more of such DDF descriptions. Thus, all objects instantiated in a DevMan tree come from one of the DDF documents. And, while the DDF document for objects is common to all devices, the DevMan tree need not be the same for all of the devices. As noted above, a digital camera, for example, may be added to the mobile node. The DDF for enabling a camera attachment to the mobile node might well be the same for mobile nodes of the same make. But, when the tree based on this DDF is created in each mobile node, it may be created at different locations in the DevMan tree.
A network DevMan server conventionally is able to obtain client (e.g., mobile node) capability information associated with a DevMan client tree and, responsive thereto, to exert managerial control over the DevMan client. Existing management protocols are available by which to support the retrieval of the value, or attributes, of individual ones of the objects and the structure thereof that define the DevMan tree.
Existing communication protocols, such as SNMP, provide for Get messages for individual objects, necessitating multiple Get messages to obtain the information for multiple objects of a DevMan tree. SNMPv2 supports a Get-Bulk message which may request the value of each of a collection of objects requested in the message, and a response thereto carries the values of each object in the same response message. Get and Get-Bulk messages, however, require that each node in the DevMan tree structure be individually queried to obtain a complete object map of a DevMan tree showing how all objects in the DevMan tree are related. Thus, to obtain an object map of a DevMan tree, a request message and response message would need to be transmitted and received for each node of a DevMan tree, thereby inefficiently utilizing the band width capacity of a radio link.
Another device management protocol is SYNC ML DM1.1 or a variant thereof, such as an updated version, i.e., SYNC ML DM1.1.1, or a subsequent revision thereof. An existing version of this protocol, however, supports only a Get message procedure for retrieving the value of an object. To retrieve a collection of objects, including an object map of a DevMan tree, this protocol requires several Get messages, or a single Get message listing all of the objects for which the information is requested. When the node with which the network manager is associated is a mobile node, such as a mobile terminal together with additional functionality, the need to send a plurality of Get messages over a radio link extending to the mobile node, and the corresponding response messages generated responsive thereto, inefficiently utilizes the band width capacity of the radio link. And, a large Get message, listing all of the required objects for which information is requested, also is inefficient as the message-size increases proportional with the number of objects for which information is requested.
Accordingly, existing protocols are inadequate for use by a network manager in conjunction with a dynamically-configurable mobile node to obtain an object map of a client DevMan tree. Any manner by which to provide a more efficient mechanism by which to facilitate retrieval or other exchange of an object map of a DevMan tree from a mobile node to permit a network manager to effectuate network management operations would be advantageous.
It is in light of this background information related to communications with a mobile node of a communication network that the significant improvements of the present invention have evolved.